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AfriGeneas News & Announcements
June 2003



Friday, June 27, 2003

AOL clamps down on spammer AfriGeneas

On June 18th, AOL starting bouncing all mail from our main AfriGeneas list to its members. It has taken more than a week of emails and phone calls to find out that a couple of members who made spam reports led to AOL's blocking our IP address at MS State. Wow, huh? All of our subscribers have subscribed themselves! Seems the problems were started by a few folks who either couldn't figure out how to unsubscribe or who forgot that they subscribed in the first place! Hopefully all will be resolved by tonight. And AOL has promised to run spam reports past the AfriGeneas List Manager so that she can manually unsub people instead of denying service to everyone. About 800 or so of our subscribers use an AOL edress.

Well, at least it shows that AOL is seriously fighting spam even if a legit email list that's routed through a university's servers was a casualty. LOL.


Posted by
Webmaster on 6/27/03 at 1:13 am EST


Thursday, June 26, 2003

Scholars to Meet on Slavery Reparations

For Immediate Release: June 11, 2003

Contact: Deadria C. Farmer-Paellmann
Phone: 917-365-3007

SCHOLARS TO MEET ON SLAVERY REPARATIONS LITIGATION AGAINST BLUE-CHIP CORPORATIONS

On Thursday, June 26, 2003, scholars will convene at the National Press Club, Holeman Lounge, from 12 noon-3pm, at 529 14th Street NW, Washington D.C., for a discussion on landmark lawsuits filed by descendants of enslaved Africans against blue-chip corporations. The meeting is entitled: Should Corporate America Pay?

Between March 26, 2002 and January 21, 2003, nine (9) lawsuits were filed against 17 corporations for slavery reparations. The defendants are companies from industries including: Banking, Insurance, Transportation and Tobacco. The plaintiffs are descendants of enslaved Africans who allege that the corporations have been unjustly enriched by their participation in crimes against humanity. Some of the plaintiffs in these actions are the biological sons and daughters of enslaved Africans. The plaintiffs are asking that a humanitarian trust fund be created by the companies to address the economic, social, health, and educational disparity that slave descendants live under as a result of the legacy of slavery.

An esteemed panel of scholars from across the country will help give clarity on issues addressed in the lawsuits including the legal history of slavery; the economic, social, and psychological impact of slavery on descendants of enslaved Africans; and the precedence supporting reparations.

Meeting Highlights/Guest Speakers Include:

Dr. Raymond A. Winbush, Morgan State University, and author of, Should America Pay? Slavery and the Raging Debate On Reparations, will serve as moderator.

Professor Richard America, Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business, will address the economic and equitable basis for slavery reparations.

Dr. Joy A. DeGruy-Leary, Graduate School of Social Work, Portland State University, will present on her pioneering research and development of the explanatory theory "Post-traumatic Slave Syndrome".

Professor Ted Kornweibel, Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies at San Diego State University, will present research on the complicity of the railroad industry in the enslavement of African men, women and children.

Professor William M. Wiecek, Syracuse University College of Law, Chester A. Congdon Professor of Public Law and Legislation, will discuss the public law of slavery including neo-Somerset freedom cases, and the Reconstruction era.

Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, Northeastern Illinois University Center for Inner City Education, and Chairman of the National Black United Front, will give an overview of the history of the reparations movement in the United States.

This meeting is sponsored by a consortium of academic, scholarly, and grassroots organizations including: Morgan State University's Institute for Urban Affairs, Northeastern Illinois University's Inner City Studies Education, the National Black United Front, the December 12th Movement, Millions for Reparations, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), the Freedmen Descendants of the 5 Civilized Tribes, Inc., and the Restitution Study Group, Inc.


Posted by
Webguru on 6/26/03 at 11:03 pm EST


Tuesday, June 17, 2003

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Sojourner Rolle, the AfriGeneas Poet

This month the
SPOTLIGHT shines brightly on our very own AfriGeneas Poet, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle.

I consider myself "a Black poet". I like the phrase. I love the tradition of Black Poetry. I was inspired first by my grandmother, Carruth Drummond Kincaid, who was a great community leader and public speaker. She always included poetry whenever she spoke. I often say my goal is to write a poem that my grandmother might choose to include in one of her speeches. And then there was the tradition of poem-saying in my church and in every public event in the "colored" community. The two ladies in our town who always "brought the poem" never wrote them but would do a recitation of some well-known poet. I was exposed to poetry all during my growing up but no one - no relative, no teacher, no friend - ever told me I could write a poem. And it never occurred to me to write one. I think I never had the idea until I heard Nikki Giovanni on an album. The urge was there and eventually the poems began to come out. I just started writing poems. Twenty years later I was calling myself a poet. Now I call myself a poet and a poetry teacher, a poetry advocate, a poetry promoter. My life is about poetry endeavor.

Read her full profile and poetry.


Posted by Webmaster on 6/17/03 at 3:25 am EST


Thursday, June 12, 2003

AfriGeneas Honored by Family Tree Magazine; Named to Hall of Fame

AfriGeneas has been named one of Family Tree Magazine's annual 101 best family history Web sites in the August 2003 issue of Family Tree Magazine, which is now going out to subscribers and goes on sale at newsstands nationwide on Tuesday, June 24.

Family Tree described AfriGeneas as:

"A terrific starting place for African-American research, AfriGeneas also stands out for its online data. The clickable collection includes a surname database, slave manifests from the Port of New Orleans (1818 to 1860), deed abstracts from Granville County, NC (1746 to 1864), Georgia slave bills of sale, city directories of blacks in Baltimore (1810 to 1866), the Richmond, Va., city directory of "Free Colored" people from 1852 and much more. You'll also find a mailing list, message boards, a chat room and other networking tools. "

Yay Team!

Source: Family Tree Magazine's 101 Best Family History Sites 2003

Posted by Webmaster on 6/12/03 at 11:26 pm EST

V.K. Nelson Receives Lifetime Service Award from Genealogy Forum

AfriGeneas founder and webmaster, Valencia King Nelson, recently retired after 10 years with Genealogy Forum. The Forum's leader and founder, George Ferguson, gave Valencia (who is aka GFSVKN) a Lifetime Service Award, saying:

"In this area I usually pat on of our staff with a much deserved pat on the back. This month I am going to go a step further and give a Life time service award to one of the people in the forum that deserves much much more then just a pat on the back. Valencia King Nelson is the rock we have built our forum on. She was one of the first forum leaders when she helped to create the African American SIG. She took this SIG to the heights and it has won several awards and is still one of the best run SIGs in the forum. More recently she has also been the Personnel Manager for the forum and is the reason we have such great hosts here. This is her last month in this position and I want to have you join me in thanking her for all the wonderful work she has done over the past ten years. Valencia you are the greatest !!"

Source: Genealogy Forum News - June 2003

Posted by Webmaster on 6/12/03 at 10:32 pm EST



26 Jun 2003 | 26 Jun 2003
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